Individual Photo/Bios
Billy Beard
A very busy Boston based drummer with a long and varied career, best known
for his work with singer songwriters such as Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna and
Kim Richey.
In the early 1980's he was a founding member of and drummer for the pop band
Face to Face. The band was comprised of these current musical luminaries:
esteemed Nashville songwriter and producer (Kings of Leon) Angelo, Twinemen
songstress Laurie Sargent and current Bob Dylan guitarist Stu Kimball. As
well as extentisive global touring,the band scored a top 40 hit with the
song 10-9-8, recorded two records for Epic, one for Polygram and had a huge
local following up until they broke up in 1988.
From '89 - '93 Beard was the drummer for psychedelic roots rockers The Immortals (again with Angelo), as well as with a number of Boston-based artists. Billy was a close friend of and frequent collaborator with the late Mark Sandman of
Morphine, and during this time he worked closely with him as well as with
Robin Lane, Velveteen (with Boston Herald music critic Robin Vaughn), Laurie
Sargent, Dave Sharp (The Alarm), Modern Farmer (with Reeves Gabrels) and the experimental band Supergroup with Sandman and Chris Ballew (Presidents of
the United States of America).
In 1995 Beard returned to the road full time with Nashville's Kim Richey
following the release of her first record on Mercury Nashville. After
touring for two years (both headlining smaller venues and opening for bands
such as Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Trisha Yearwood)
the road band went into the studio and recorded her critically acclaimed
second CD Bitterweet. That band continued to tour until late '97. Afterwards,
during what turned out to be a long hiatus for Richey, Billy continued to
work with a number of Nashville singer-songwriters, including Chris Knight,
Duane Jarvis, R.B. Morris, Joy Lynn White, Kevin Gordon, and others. Then in
1998 he received a call from an old Immortals fan: Patty Griffin. He
joined the road band following the release of her second major label CD Flaming
Red. That band toured from 1998 to 2001, recorded an infamous CD entitled Silver Bell that was never released, and in 2000 embarked an a huge North American tour as the opening act for The Dixie Chicks.
From 2001 to 2005 Beard's energies focused on the homefront, recording and or
performing with the likes of Lori McKenna, Kris Delmhorst, Jess Klein, Deb
Talan, Maybe Baby, Deb Pasternak, Amelia White, and The Ragman Son Revue.
Most recently he has been working on new CD's by Jimmy Ryan, Dennis Brennan, Jabe Beyer, Bruno Green and Session Americana, as well as playing with Jennifer Kimball and Christian McNeill. He will soon begin an upcoming
project with Melissa Ferrick, with whom he toured in late 2004.
